Introduction

To help inform our next Pricing Submission we undertook a deliberative process and engaged an independent organisation to recruit a randomly selected group of 45 customers to help address the challenge:

"How does Coliban Water prepare for tomorrow while being fair to customers today".

Our region is facing a critical point in its water supply and demand. Our built structures are aging, and our climate is getting drier. We need to prepare for this changing future. We want your help in deciding how to balance these priorities and set water prices for the next five years.

Background

The recruitment of the panel was carried out via an independent selection process. Expressions of interest were sent to 15,000 randomly selected customers from across our region. People who received this invitation were able to nominate to be on the panel and were assessed and appointed by an independent third party.

The Community Panel will sit across five sessions between February and June 2022. The output of the panel will be a number of recommendations to our Board of Directors and Senior Management about how we should tackle this important question and the associated challenges.

Engagement specialists MosaicLab will facilitate the Community Panel and they will be supported by research partners Insync. The Sortition Foundation coordinated the recruitment of panel members.

Recommendations

The Community Panel has deliberated over four full days. They were given a range of information and heard from a diverse group of speakers and subject matter experts. The panel has presented nine recommendations. You can read these recommendations by clicking the yellow button below.

We will meet with the panel on 18 June 2022 to respond to their recommendations.

The recommendations are about four key themes that the panel focused on during their deliberations. We have grouped the recommendations together under the relevant themes below. There were also three minority reports written by a few panel members. They are also available below.